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Hi
On Saturday a very large dog came at high speed out of a hedge and collided with the front corner of my wife's car. She stopped, the dog surprisingly continued to run around. On the other side of the road there was a white van containing the dog's owner. The dog's owner said that she had lost control of the dog as it had chased a deer. My wife had a quick look at her car, in the dark, and didn't notice any damage. However when she got home, we found some very expensive damage to the front lights and bodywork. We didn't realise at the time that by law we should have called the police immediately - it was only by chance that I found out that we were supposed to inform the police at all, but this we did by calling at the local police station, and they are perfectly happy on that.
Unfortunately, my wife didn't at the time realise that her car was very badly damaged, and didn't swap any details of any kind with the dog owner (who said just "thankyou for stopping, my dog had been chasing deer"). Anyway, I do realise that the dog owner is liable. I also know it is unlikely that the dog owner will have reported anything separately to the police.
However the police response surprised me. They said that they will not search on their records for any incident involving a dog in the area, so they will not even do a few minutes work to find out if the dog owner made a report, never mind do anything purporting to an 'investigation' (asking local vets for any emergency treatment etc) even though they realise that the dog owner is responsible for the accident. Not only that, they said that even if the dog owner did report something to the duty office at the station and that duty officer realised full well that the accident being reported is the same one, the police would not let me know. So I stand no chance of claiming from the dog owner, and the police don't seem concerned.
is this the correct position for the police to adopt ?